Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 3:42am

Who's Gonna Grab the Third Rail?

That’s a line from a brief but astounding post by Kevin Williamson of NRO, which I’m reproducing in full here:

A little perspective from the debt commission:

“The commission leaders said that, at present, federal revenue is fully consumed by three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. ‘The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans — the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries,’ [Alan] Simpson said.”

Three programs — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — consume 100 percent of federal revenue, and everything else is paid for with borrowed money.  This is why we cannot balance the budget by cutting military spending, foreign aid, food stamps, etc. There is not going to be a serious project to address our deficit/debt problem without deep, painful entitlement reform, and the longer we wait to admit that fact and get going on it, the worse it is going to be.

So, who’s gonna grab that third rail? George W. Bush tried and got hammered — an example that few if any in Washington are eager to follow.

Indeed. I think if this is going to happen, it’s going to have to come from the people (tea parties, perhaps?), because it seems suicidal for any politician to take it on without considerable popular support.

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Michael
Michael
Tuesday, August 10, AD 2010 9:27am

Really? So FICA and Medicare withholding represent the entire federal revenue stream? Whatever happened to the federal income tax and other revenue sources?

The reality is that we are being set up. The federal government is looking for ways to default on what it owes and it will be far easier to default on what it owes its own people through social security than what it owes foreign banks. Defaulting on foreign loans will affect its credit rating and ability to further borrow while leaving retirees high and dry will just hurt retirees.

afl
afl
Tuesday, August 10, AD 2010 12:00pm

Finaly someone has outlined the major problem of our deficit spending..Without borrowed money in the term of t notes, we would be bankrupted in regards to income. IT IS TIME for means testing and benefits of those who really do not need SS survie. A cap on those with a certain substainable income need to be removed from SS and Medicare needs to have a schedule of benefits and of premium cost similar to the income tax tables based on 1040 results of income each year to determine premiums and benefits. There will be the normal hue and cry, but our representatives need the backbone to make it happen.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, August 10, AD 2010 12:04pm

They will never solve anything.

Nearly that entire first paragraph is incorrect. SS and Medicare are (even today) fully funded out of specific FICA and Medicare taxes, not out of general (personal and corporate income taxes, excise taxes, etc.) tax revenues. In fact, the SS surpluses are spent in vote-buying gov programs, and the SS trust fund gets in return nonpublic US debt instruments that can only be repaid from new taxes. The fit hits the shan when the SS taxes paid in are insufficient to pay SS (30,000,000 baby boomer) benefits and the guv needs to tax we the people to repay worthless debt to pay SS beneficiaries.

I’m too depressed to continue.

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